Mother, May I? (2023)

"First Class Low Budget Horror"

Writer-Director Laurence Vannicelli's engrossing, beautifully shot, multi-layered low budget horror thriller gets a digital release from Vertigo.

When his mother dies, Emmett (Kyle Gallner from SMILE, SCREAM V and THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT) inherits her remote barn conversion house. He travels there with his fiancée Anya (Holland Roden) with the intention of clearing it out and preparing it for sale.

However, once they arrive it transpires that Emmett is harbouring deep resentment towards his deceased mother because of, it seems, abandonment issues. Anya fancies herself as an amateur psychoanalyst (we learn her mother is a real one) and tried to get Emmett to open up about his feelings. However, everything gets complicated when one morning Emmett wakes up to find Anya has taken on the persona of his mother. Is she embarking on a potentially dangerous attempt at psychotherapy? Or has Emmett's mother actually taken possession of her?

No answers here because MOTHER, MAY I? will have you guessing until close to the end, by which time you will have been given enough to think about that the answers to those questions won't matter half as much as what we've learned about the two lead characters in the process.

As well as a carefully thought out script that's acted well, the film benefits immensely from some stunning visual compositions, making the most of the lush countryside that surrounds the house and inserting blurred, ghostly, Jamesian images into it for maximum effect. One overhead shot of a boat on a lake looks like a white eye staring out of a sea of darkness so if you want it there are cosmic horror allusions, too. 

Fans of classic British horror will likely appreciate the  comparison to the works of film-maker José Larraz (VAMPYRES, SYMPTOMS, etc) whose movies often featured two women and one man whose interactions in a remote location lead to horror. MOTHER, MAY I? is like that but with just the one woman. Or is it? Highly recommended and a personal favourite of the year so far. Let's have a trailer:

Laurence Vannicelli's MOTHER, MAY I? is out on digital from Vertigo Releasing on Monday 21st August 2023